


Riddles

by storm_8



Series: Joys of Motherhood [8]
Category: Women's Murder Club (TV)
Genre: F/F, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_8/pseuds/storm_8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily's homework assignment: riddles. Lindsay comes to the rescue, Ashley is a genius and Jill is slightly embarrassed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riddles

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the show or its characters. I merely borrow them for everyone's enjoyment.  
> I do own the original characters: I am quite fond of them!  
> All mistakes are mine.
> 
> I went looking for riddles online and this is what happened.

Lily Boxer was not a happy girl. Currently sitting on the floor in the living room, books and papers spread on the coffee table, she was sporting a rather aggressive scowl, which she directed at her English homework assignment.

 

Ashley, who had been on her way to the kitchen to talk to her redhead mother, stopped and raised an eyebrow at her sister’s dishevelled look. Apparently she had been pulling at her hair at some point and then had given up, throwing her hands up and growling in frustration.

 

“Lil? You alright?” she asked, carefully approaching the girl.

 

She only received a grunt in reply.

 

Deciding for a different approach, the brunette grinned widely.

 

“Lil, you look like you’ve been ravaged. Have you got a boyfriend that I don’t know about? Or maybe a girlfriend?” She asked and then wiggled her eyebrows for effect.

 

Ashley barely had time to _think_ about running away before she was hit by two pillows and then tackled by her enraged sister.

 

Lindsay, who had just finished taking a shower and was towel-drying her hair, heard the laughter and the thudding and bumping around in the living room and could only sigh in defeat. So much for a calm afternoon…

 

*****

 

“Riddles?” Ashley asked flabbergasted. “Are you serious?”

 

Lily pouted and nodded, burying her face on her sister’s shoulder. The brunette just sighed and rubbed the girl’s back reassuringly.

 

“What’s this all about?” Lindsay asked, as she emerged from the bedroom and found her daughters huddled together around what seemed to be Lily’s schoolbooks.

 

Martha, who had been at the inspector’s heels, trotted to Lily’s side and bumped her nose against the girl’s shoulder, which earned her a smile and hug. Martha barked and wagged her tail happily. Lindsay just chuckled at the exchange.

 

“Lily has a really odd homework assignment.” Ashley explained.

 

“Humm, and how does that translate into the commotion I just heard, Ash? Is the homework some kind of research on the do’s and don’ts of sisterhood?” The brunette woman asked, grinning at her daughter’s shocked face.

 

Lily was completely oblivious to their conversation, having decided that at the moment Martha deserved more her attention than her ridiculous homework.

 

“Oh my god! Mom, seriously, did you just make a joke?” Ashley asked, when she’d recovered.

 

“Hey!” Lindsay exclaimed affronted “I know how to make jokes!”

 

Ashley grinned and gave her mother a thumbs up. “It was a cool one too. Although I would have expected it more from mom.” She waved towards the kitchen, where Cindy was sitting at the table finishing her latest article.

 

Lindsay smiled and shook her head. She plopped down on the couch and ruffled her daughter’s hair. “You are one sneaky little devil, you know that?”

 

The girl just grinned widely in response.

 

“So what’s this homework assignment that nearly destroyed my furniture?”

 

“Riddles. Apparently they have to come up with a riddle and present it in class.” Ashley explained, gesticulating towards the papers on the table. “You know, we never had to do that. And she’s got Mrs. Taylor as well…”

 

Lindsay grimaced “Ah, yes, the lovely Mrs. Taylor, who had a few choice words for me and Cindy at the parent-teacher meeting…”

 

“The one you wanted to arrest for assault on a police officer.” Came from the kitchen table “Because that would’ve helped…”

 

“I actually wanted to shoot her…” Lindsay whispered, so only the girls could hear. They giggled and Cindy just shook her head and continued her work.

 

“So, anyway, we have to come up with the riddle and the woman said it had to be original and the answer not that obvious. But it has to have a definite answer, not one of those that can have different answers depending on how it’s phrased and such.” Lily sighed and huffed. Martha gave her a comforting bump on the arm.

 

They were silent for a few minutes and then Lindsay’s eyes lit up. “I know a riddle. A good one too. Jill still doesn’t know the answer to it.” Seeing the expectant looks, the inspector leaned back and started her tale:

 

_David Campbell, General Agent of the Silver Star Insurance Company, resident of the London Borough of Chelsea, planned carefully. He began with sending his wife Linda and his twin daughters Rita und Shelly to the countryside. It was a Friday evening._

_On Saturday evening he took the last 150 pounds from the office safe and left the house. As Campbell came back from the horse races at 6 o’clock in the evening, the money had been used for betting. In one word: David Campbell was bankrupt. His passion for betting had ruined him._

_Undisturbed, he began to develop the second part of his plan: with the help of a carefully measured amount of dynamite, he blew open the safe in his office. Then he emptied the contents of several containers such as drawers, cupboards and compartments onto the floor. He pulled the telephone from the connection box and pulled all 25 folders out of the bookcase._

_As it became dark outside, he pulled on a pair of Wellington boots, which he had prepared. They were three sizes too large and had deep indents in the professional boot soles. He put out all of the lights in the house and entered the garden. For five minutes he busied himself with leaving enough tracks before he put out a window in the kitchen door and then trampled through the house in his dirty Wellington boots._

_The trail led through the hallway and into the office, which had already been wrecked, and he made sure to leave enough dirt and foot prints. He went back the way he came, pulled the boots off outside and then entered the house in his socks. With a sharp knife, he cut the boots into little pieces and flushed them down the toilet._

_At 11 p.m. he went upstairs to the first floor, pulled his pajamas on and laid himself in bed. He got up again, took a pistol from his bedside table and went down into the hallway barefoot. He fired three times up at the stairs._

_120 seconds later he shot twice from the stairs down into the hallway._

_It was now 11.08 p.m._

_David Campbell began to hope that his neighbours had good ears._

_He smeared his face with some Vaseline in the bathroom and splashed himself with water. He even splashed the front and back of his pajamas with water._

_At 11.17 he heard the police car sirens. Then 3 officers stormed into the house through the kitchen door._

_At 11.35, Detective Sergeant Newton himself arrived on the scene and a shaking and ‘sweat bathed’ David Campbell made a statement:_

_“I can’t really tell you much. I was woken by a dull thump. Then I heard noises on the ground floor. I took my pistol and crept downstairs. Half way down the stairs I saw a shadow. I shouted “stop, or I’ll shoot!” then mayhem broke loose. He shot at me three times and I shot back twice. The shadow disappeared into the kitchen. I wanted to phone but the connection had been cut. 15 000 pounds in cash and 10 000 in valuable papers have been stolen from my safe."_

_As he signed the statement, Berry Hyde from the forensic team came and told Newton: “It’s a clear thing, Jack. The offender came through the garden and through the kitchen door. We have taken plaster models of the footprints. There were also a lot of fingerprints. It is not yet confirmed if they are the fingerprints of the offender."_

_While Sergeant Newton went to his office with Campbell, Hyde started to dig the bullets out of the walls. At 12.40 the officers left the despairing David Campbell._

_On Sunday, a little before 11.00 a.m., Campbell received another visit from the same Sergeant Newton. However this time he wasn’t so friendly: “Please get dressed, Sir, and pack your essentials. We will have plenty of time to discuss the facts about faking a crime."_

_David Campbell thought hard before he realised the mistake he had made._

_What had he done wrong?_

 

At the end of her story, Lindsay glanced around at her captive audience. Even Martha seemed to have been following her every word.

 

Lily and Cindy both sat, looks of deep concentration on their faces. Ashley just raised an eyebrow and said she knew the answer.

 

“You do?” the redhead teen girl asked her sister, looking unconvinced.

 

Lindsay was impressed. She couldn’t remember anyone, beside herself, getting to the answer so quickly.

 

Cindy smiled, when she saw Lindsay’s awed expression. Her lover was such a softie when it came to her daughters; it was very heart-warming to watch.

 

“You know the answer? I think even Kayla took over a day to come up with it…”

 

“She’s your daughter, what’d you expect?” the reporter said from the kitchen “She didn’t just get her glare and stubbornness from you…”

 

“I think there’s an insult somewhere in there…” the inspector called back, receiving a smile and a wink in return.

 

Lily just looked around in confusion and then annoyance. “I still don’t know!” She grumped “It seems a pretty perfect set-up…”

 

******

 

Two days later, Lily still didn’t know the answer to her mother’s riddle. She was determined to figure it out herself, before she had to hand in her homework, but her sister kept mocking her and it was driving her up the walls.

 

She had written it up, in the hopes that _seeing_ the riddle would help, but she was still absurdly stuck.

 

“So, Lil, you figure out the answer yet?” Ashley asked as she joined her sister outside the school, waiting for their redhead mother to pick them up.

 

“No, but I know it’s not the fingerprints, because even if they came back as the house owner’s, the police would assume the thief was wearing gloves.” She replied, glaring at the brunette.

 

Ashley just grinned toothily, which only intensified the redhead girl’s scowl.

 

“Ah, don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. I’m sure of it.” The brunette reassured, placing an arm around her sister’s shoulders.

 

Lily nodded and then smiled “At least you get to make fun of aunt Jill. She still hasn’t figured it out and it took you all of three seconds…”

 

Ash grinned evilly “She’s gonna flip…”

 

Further discussion was interrupted by a car horn coming from across the street, where they saw their mother waving. They hurried to the other side and slid in, Cindy telling them they were going to make a stop at the Hall and then head home.

 

******

 

“Where is Kayla? I thought she was coming with you?” Jill asked as they exited the elevator.

 

“She’s trying to track down the husband. He seems to be conveniently absent, somewhere on the other side of the country.” Lindsay explained, holding the door to the morgue open, motioning the attorney inside; the attorney who promptly turned her back on the autopsy table, when she saw Claire opening the skull to extract a bullet.

 

“Urghh, a little warning next time…” she grumbled at her inspector friend.

 

Lindsay just grinned and joined the M.E., peering over the woman’s shoulder as she carefully prodded the brain for the missing bullet.

 

“You know, I would expect your two daughters to be curiously looking over my shoulder, not you.” Claire commented.

 

At her friend’s raised eyebrow, Lindsay took two steps back and grinned.

 

“Speaking of, where’s Cindy? Wasn’t she supposed to meet us here?” Jill asked, still facing the morgue door, but moving a few steps closer to her friends.

 

“Right here!” The reporter greeted as she came through the door, her two daughters following closely behind. They waved at their aunts and then huddled around the autopsy table to get a good look at the open and empty skull.

 

“That is so cool!” they whispered in awe, ignoring everyone else in the room.

 

“It is _not_ cool!”

 

“Sure it is, aunt Jill.” Lily replied, tilting her head to one side, never looking up.

 

“It’s actually much more interesting than those frogs from Biology.” Ashley added.

 

Jill sighed and turned around to face her friends. “Why do I get the impression that we’re looking at two future medical examiners?”

 

The two girls straightened and grinned at each other. Then they smirked evilly and approached their blonde aunt. Jill frowned at the two smirking girls.

 

“Actually, I might become the next ‘Inspector Boxer’…” Ashley started.

 

Lindsay and Cindy looked at each other and then at the girls, while Claire stopped what she was doing, bullet in one hand and scalpel in the other.

 

“You know, Ash solved mom’s riddle, probably even before mom finished reciting it.” Lily continued “And I hear you’ve known the riddle for years and still haven’t solved it…”

 

Jill blinked in utter confusion for a few seconds and then her eyes widened comically “You mean the ‘perfect plan’ one?”

 

The girls nodded simultaneously, still smirking.

 

“There is no way you solved that so quickly!” the attorney stated, pointing a finger at the brunette teen.

 

“Course there is. She _is_ _my_ daughter after all…” Lindsay proclaimed, putting a hand on her eldest daughter’s shoulder. “Lily, on the other hand, is still working on it.” She added, quickly retreating a few steps, when the redhead teen spun around on her heel to glare at her.

 

“MOM! Way to spoil the fun!” Lily exclaimed.

 

While the four continued their bickering, Cindy shook her head in amusement and approached Claire, asking for other details on the victim’s death that she may possibly publish, before her boss started yelling again.

 

******

 

They retreated to Claire’s office to decide on their next moves on the case, while the girls still hovered around the body looking at the open skull, then the brain and then the still open chest cavity.

 

“So, you suspect the husband?” Cindy asked, scribbling away on her notebook.

 

“Well, he seems to be somewhere in New York, so if that checks out he couldn’t have done it. But nothing says he couldn’t have hired someone to kill his wife. The woman was quite influential…” Lindsay replied, leaning against Claire’s desk.

 

“You could do some research, see what dirt you can dig up on them…” Jill suggested, to which Cindy scowled.

 

“You make it sound like what I’m doing is illegal.”

 

“Well, _technically_ , it is.” Jill grinned, only to receive and eye roll and get a pen thrown her way.

 

“You two together are worse than my children…” Lindsay commented.

 

“You know mom, in school they’ve told us that children reflect their parents, so it’s your fault if me and Ash are troublemakers.” Lily said, poking her head around the door “Besides, you’re always saying that trouble seems to follow mom around…” she added, waving in Cindy’s direction “…so it stands to reason that it’s both your fault.” She grinned and then disappeared back into the morgue, leaving two frowning mothers behind.

 

“The girl does have a point…” Jill stated, getting another pen chucked her way, this time coming from Lindsay.

 

“ _Anyway…_ ” Lindsay started, trying to steer the conversation back on topic “Don’t print anything about the husband until we know more. You can say she was shot once in the head. I need to check with Kayla, to see whether the husband has a gun license or not.”

 

“Anything else?” Cindy asked, turning to Claire.

 

“Not really. Cause of death is straightforward, gunshot wound to the head. I’ll have the ballistics report tomorrow. They are somewhat backlogged in the lab-”

 

“What did you just say?” Lily suddenly interrupted, making Jill jump slightly.

 

Claire blinked in confusion: “They are backlogged in the lab?”

 

“No, no, before that.” The redhead girl waved her hand around “Something about ballistics…” she mumbled to herself and then made a beeline to her school backpack. The four women could only stare in confusion, while the girl rummaged around and then pulled out a sheet of paper.

 

The sudden silence alerted Ashley, who poked her head around the door to see what was going on. She saw her sister pulling out the paper where she’d written their mother’s riddle and quickly reading through it, all the while mumbling something about bullets. When the redhead girl’s eyes lit up, Ashley smiled.

 

“Lily, what is going on?” Lindsay asked, looking over her daughter’s shoulder. She was taken by surprise when the girl spun around and hugged her, squealing in the delight.

 

“Oh my god! I got it!” Lily exclaimed, releasing the inspector and waving the sheet in the air. “It’s the bullets! All the bullets fired were from the same gun. If there had been an intruder who’d fired at Campbell, the three bullets shot up the stairs wouldn’t match to his gun.” She looked up at her mother, expectant look on her face.

 

Lindsay smiled and nodded “Yeah, that’s the answer.” She was hugged again.

 

Amid Lily’s squeals, Cindy’s wide smile and Claire’s chuckles, Ashley noticed that her blonde aunt had a very concentrated look on her face as if she was trying to work something out.

 

Smirking evilly, the girl approached the attorney and poked her on the side: “So, Lily figured it out after two days… How long have you known this riddle again?”

 

The fact that Jill was embarrassed and very pissed at being outsmarted and then made fun of, reached Kayla’s ears as she exited the elevator on the morgue floor. When she entered the morgue she was met by full blown laughter and a blushing DA Bernhardt, who kept gesticulating angrily at Lindsay. She shook her head and walked back the way she’d come from.


End file.
